LAS PIEDRAS EP, GEPE
Quemasucabeza, Chile ***1/2
Rating: 77
By Carlos Reyes
Daniel Riveros is Gepe, the acclaimed Chilean singer whose 2005 record Gepinto was an indie hit among music critics. As he prepares to perform at Vive Latino next month, we are finally discovering what all the fuss is about. He releases his latest Las Piedras EP under the renewed Argentinean netlabel Quemasucabeza (home of also Fonograma favorites Congelador). Gepe brings accessible melodic pop with a non-distinctive voice, but it doesn’t lack warmth and fondness, which makes his music very immediate to taste and process. “Las Piedras” opens the show with its electro bouncing entrance that reoccurs throughout the song and lets go at the end, very much like Babasonicos’ “Microdancing”; it babbles about the sad condition a relationship is going through, trying to simplify it by using rocks as metaphors of the stiffed and distant love-hate affiliation. Gepe gets even flashier with “De Paso”, which reminds me of Emmanuel Horvilleur and the SiempreEsHoy Gustavo Cerati. It’s one of those songs trying to stop time at the most beautiful moments, on the surface is a very sweet song but once it confesses that “el ritmo se reinventa desde ti”, one can only hopes love prevails or else the rhythm will collapse tragically. The instrumentation in “Elegancia y Transmision” struggles to support its lyrics and vocals, but things get back track with “Victoria Roma.” Here Gepe brings some of the best stuff we like in people like Javiera Mena and Ulises Hadjis, they build up forms within the music, give them rhythm and most importantly direction. I got to give some props to Valeria Jara whose fulfilling vocals are exquisite. “Horizontal” rounds up the EP with a synthesizing pulse, describing its surroundings as it seems to enter another galaxy, or as the title suggests perhaps just a wall.
♫♫♫ "Las Piedras"
Download EP [Via Quemasucabeza)
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